Bank, tax and securitisation specialists join NewSmith Financial Products

London, Tuesday, February 22, 2005

NewSmith Financial Solutions Ltd, the corporate advisory arm of NewSmith Capital Partners, has appointed Jan-Erik Andersen and Michael Woodman as Partners, and Matteo Battaglia as an associate.

Jan-Erik Andersen was formerly Chairman and Chief Executive of Bank One Europe Ltd, before which he had been Managing Director and Head of European Corporate and Institutional Banking. In total, Jan-Erik spent 14 years with Bank One and its legacy bank, The First National Bank of Chicago. A native of Norway, he received his BSBA in finance and marketing from the University of Denver.

Michael Woodman was formerly a Business Tax Director within GE Capital and has served as European Head of Tax for The Prudential Insurance Company of America. He studied Accountancy at Southampton University before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor with Deloitte Haskins & Sells. Immediately prior to joining NewSmith, Michael advised FTSE-100 companies through Affecton, the tax consultancy partnership that he co-founded in 2002.

Matteo Battaglia joins NewSmith from Fitch Ratings in London where he was an analyst in the Collateralised Debt Obligations group. Prior to this, he was a Corporate Finance analyst at Ernst & Young in Rome where he specialised in securitisation and corporate finance. He holds a BSc in Law from the University of Bologna, and a MSc in Financial Markets from "La Sapienza" University in Rome.

The appointments further strengthen the integrated capabilities of NewSmith Financial Solutions, particularly with regard to advising corporate clients on optimisation of their balance sheets and capital structures, including securitisation.

"These appointments reflect the steady progress of our corporate financing advisory business," said NewSmith partner TJ Lim. "There has never been a greater need for businesses to seek both expert and independent advice on their financing issues. We are seeing an accelerating flow of clients requiring practitioner-sourced advice on non-standard balance sheet issues, and will continue to hire selectively over the coming months."